INJUIllES OF THE BKAIN — CONCUSSION. 5 



INJURIES OF THE BRAIN. 



These are not near so frequent as miglit be imagined. Not but 

 horses' heads receive injuries enough from falls and blows to often 

 occasion fracture and depression of bone, but that the walls of the 

 skull are constructed with so much wisdom and foresight (being 

 provided with barriers and additional substance in such parts — the 

 occiput and temples — as are most exposed), that the collision must 

 be heavy indeed to produce fracture^ and without fracture we can 

 hardly in such parts as these suppose a case of depression : all 

 that results, nineteen times out of twenty, from falls backward, 

 being a degree of 



CONCUSSION 



producing transient fright and giddiness noticeable only at the time. 



Now^ and then, however, although nothing more than some verti- 

 ginous sensations may occur at the moment, an attack of phrenitis, 

 at a more or less distant interval, will ensue from a fall of this kind. 



Eight years ago, a blood black mare, the property of an officer 

 of the Life Guards, had been ridden by his groom behind him from 

 the Regent's Park to Norwood, where, in the . act of shying and 

 rearing, she was pulled backward by her rider, and fell upon the 

 back of her head. She was ridden home by the groom, nothing 

 appearing to ail her : the same night, however, she appeared dull 

 and unwell ; the next day she shewed symptoms of phrenitis. As 

 an instance of the worst effects of concussion, I cannot find any 

 thing equal to the following very interesting case, sent to The 

 Veterinarian for 1834, by Mr. Cheetham, veterinary surgeon, 

 Edinburgh. 



A cart-horse was so much injured by a fall, that it was thought he would 

 never rise again. He lay in a prostrate position, hardly discernibly breathing, 

 and so continued for about half an hour, during which time the bars of his 

 mouth were cut, but with little effect. He was then so far raised up as to 

 enable persons to bleed him ; and when he had lost what was conjectured to 

 amount to five or six quarts, by the aid of several men he was got upon his 

 legs, and supported into the stable. At this period Mr. C. arrived. His 

 pulse was 40. His head drooped us if he had lost all sensation. Mr. C. 



